Catalytic processing is required to execute certain material processing tasks such as chemical refinement of fluid and gaseous materials. For example, in the process of catalytic cracking for petroleum refinement, it is common to use a catalytic material to facilitate the desired cracking or other transformation. Typically, the material to be refined is directed through an appropriate catalytic material until a certain level of transformation has occurred. Because the catalytic efficiency of the system is strongly related to the frequency with which molecules or particles of the starting substance interact with the catalyst, the industry has adopted a practice of performing such catalytic processes in long tubes. In particular, the starting material is forced through a set of parallel tubes, each containing the catalyst material at a predetermined desired density, e.g., particles per unit volume or weight per unit volume.
The flow rate of the material through the system is equal to the sum of the flow rates through the multiple tubes, however, it is possible for one or more tubes to exhibit lower flow rates than other tubes. Lower flow rates generally are due to clogging or overfilling of the tubes, which can have the deleterious effect of prematurely exhausting or damaging the tubes with higher flow rates. Because catalytic refineries typically are run nonstop, it is expensive to shut the process down prematurely to service the catalyst tubes; maintenance on the tubes is ideally only performed once in the course of several years. Thus, the loading of the catalyst tubes is a critical step, and the failure to properly execute this step can cause the process operator to incur financial losses due to lost production during repair as well as increased labor costs to execute the repairs.
A properly prepared set of catalyst tubes will have relatively uniform resistance to flow from tube to tube, thus ensuring uniform flow rates, and will also have a relatively uniform density of catalyst from tube to tube, thus ensuring the same degree of product transformation for each tube. Thus, the tubes must be properly checked, cleaned, and filled with catalyst. Existing cleaning and filling protocols are subject to high cost and frequent human error due to their use of numerous personnel in time-consuming tasks. Although attempts have been made to solve the foregoing problems, a solution has not yet been devised that fully addresses the concerns without introducing further significant problems or costs.